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API Calculator: Understanding the costs behind building an API-based application

Do you want to save money, deploy projects faster, and spend more time on developing application experiences that enthrall users? Then it’s practically a certainty APIs will play a critical role in your software development process. Accordingly, you’ll want to obtain a fairly accurate understanding of the cost and time required to building an API. But it’s important to understand that there’s much more to an API than just coding an interface to some data source such as a database. Whether you are planning on hiring a contractor or assign a new project to your team, an API calculator can help you understand the time and cost required to develop a mission-critical part of your next project. Continue reading “API Calculator: Understanding the costs behind building an API-based application”
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SQL DB REST APIs in Minutes, not Months

Would you like to access SQL data from your mobile, web or IOT apps?

If so, DreamFactory offers an easy and secure way to add a REST API to any SQL database in minutes, and supports 18 popular databases, among them MS SQL Server, Oracle, MySQL, IBM DB2, Postgres, SAP SQL Anywhere, SAP Hana, MemSQL and MongoDB! All you have to do is use the DreamFactory platform to connect your database, then use it to auto-generate a REST API for your database – it’s that simple!

In this blog post we’ll show how to REST-enable any SQL database, which is free forever for the databases and other services covered by our open source software. Then we’ll show some simple examples of how to use the REST API to manage your SQL schema and data.

Interested in a live demo with one of our engineers? We’ll be happy to show you how it’s done for your particular use case! If you’d rather watch a video, check out DreamFactory Academy. Alternatively, you might want to check out our new guide, Getting Started with DreamFactory. It offers a comprehensive walkthrough of generating a database-backed API. You’ll learn how to generate the API, define a role and API key, and then interact with the API using a variety of queries. Finally, if you haven’t already checked out our free open source software, you can download it here. Continue reading “SQL DB REST APIs in Minutes, not Months”
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Changing An API Key For One of Your Apps In DreamFactory

So what happens if you make a mistake and expose your admin app api_key or just need to change api_key associated with one of your apps?  We have an easy workaround that doesn’t require you to have to change any of your endpoints or having to recreate an app, etc.  This article shows you how to access all of your app API keys via MySQL or, if you haven’t fully started exploring DreamFactory yet, the default SQLite database.

Continue reading “Changing An API Key For One of Your Apps In DreamFactory”
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The importance of loose coupling in REST API design

One of the most important ideas in the world of software engineering is the concept of loose coupling. In a loosely coupled design, components are independent, and changes in one will not affect the operation of others. This approach offers optimal flexibility and reusability when components are added, replaced, or modified. Conversely, a tightly coupled design means that components tend to be interdependent. Changes in a single component can have a system wide impact, with unanticipated and undesirable effects.

Continue reading “The importance of loose coupling in REST API design”
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What if Chuck Norris Wanted to Create a Service That Automated APIs?

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Chuck Norris Joke Enthusiasts Trust DreamFactory to Automate  APIs

Thanks to amusing Chuck Norris API database site The Internet Chuck Norris Database, you can have some fun and keep the Chuck Norris jokes flowing.  With the help of DreamFactory and our API automation tools, you will always have life-changing insights making those around you just a bit more intelligent, good looking and successful.  Who doesn’t need to understand such nuggets as:

Contrary to popular belief, the Titanic didn’t hit an iceberg. The ship was off course and ran into Chuck Norris while he was doing the backstroke across the Atlantic.

Continue reading “What if Chuck Norris Wanted to Create a Service That Automated APIs?”

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Dreamfactory and GraphQL

In the 2.11 release of Dreamfactory we added support for GraphQL, the open sourced query language written by Facebook.  You can now harness the power of GraphQL inside of the API automation & integration structure of Dreamfactory.  Both REST and GraphQL offer advantages and disadvantages depending on your use case. There are several articles and posts out there expanding on this, but let’s walk through how to incorporate this service in your Dreamfactory instance.  GraphQL is available in all of our product levels: Open Source, Silver and Gold. Continue reading “Dreamfactory and GraphQL”
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Introducing API Limits

Along with the release of DreamFactory 2.5.0, we added the ability to control and limit API calls to your DreamFactory instance on several levels. This feature is currently available in DreamFactory Gold. The API limits feature makes it easy to set limits on an entire DreamFactory instance, for a specific user, role, or service. Additionally, you can set limits for each user, where every user will get a separate counter.

Continue reading “Introducing API Limits”

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The Reusable REST API Platform Strategy

The engineering team at DreamFactory designed and built some of the very first applications that use web services. Over the years, we learned many lessons trying to create the perfect mobile backend for these applications. This article lays out some of the problems companies encounter when they build custom REST APIs from scratch, and after that, we look at some of the architectural advantages and technical characteristics of a reusable REST API platform. The REST API Complexity Problem When a company decides to start a new mobile project, the IT group first defines the business requirements, and then starts writing the actual software. Usually there is a client-side team that designs the application and a server-side team that builds the backend infrastructure. These two teams must work together to develop a REST API that connects the backend data sources to the client application. One of the most time-consuming and expensive aspects of the development process is the “interface negotiation” that occurs between these two groups. With the acceptance of BYOD and general proliferation of mobile devices, the modern enterprise may need hundreds or even thousands of mobile applications. New mobile projects typically have new requirements that were not anticipated by the existing services. You could go back and try to expand the scope of the old services, but they are already in production, and so in many situations a new REST API is created for each new project. And so the API building process continues over time with various developers, consultants, and contractors. The REST APIs are often written with different tools and developer frameworks. They run on different servers or in the cloud. They are tied to different databases and file storage systems. Each new service has different security mechanisms, credential strategies, user management systems, and API parameter names, as this diagram illustrates. Continue reading “The Reusable REST API Platform Strategy”